Who Would You Choose to Have Dinner With?

The idea of being able to sit down with a few historical figures for a dinner chat has always fascinated me. Being a history buff, there are so many fascinating people I can think of that it would be hard to choose just a handful to dine with and learn from. Below is a short list of those who I’d like to meet and not in any specific order.

George Washington: While it took many brilliant men and women with the necessary courage to break away from England, I believe without Washington the war would have floundered and been lost. He was the right man at the right time and he managed to hold a rag-tag army together despite political infighting and a lack of supplies that would have pushed a normal man to give up. I’d like to know what drove him to lead our newfound country to freedom despite all the obstacles in his path.

Earl Nightingale: Other than James Earl Jones I’ve never heard someone with such a low and melodious voice. Nightingale was born in 1921, joined the Marines at 17 and was one of 12 surviving Marines onboard the USS Arizona when it was sunk in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He went on to become one of the most famous motivational speakers and writers of his time. The wealth of knowledge and wisdom he imparts is amazing and I would relish his insight on the world today and what success looks like in the 21st century.

Leonardo da Vinci: Talk about a genius being born in the wrong time…or perhaps it was just the right time to help

daVinci drawing of an airplane

humanity move from the dark ages into the Renaissance. Painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, inventor, engineer, mathematician and more, daVinci was a man of unquenchable curiosity and his inventions, drawings, paintings and writings were so far ahead of his time as to be considered crazed by some. I would love to have him look at the modern world, full of many of his inventions and see where he thought we are headed. He is arguably the smartest man to have ever lived and there is much knowledge to be gleaned from his genius.

Amelia Earhart: I have my private pilot’s license and Amelia has always fascinated me with her courage and tenacity. She pursued an avocation that at the time was strictly a man’s world and sought to break aviation records that few would attempt. Her last feat was to fly around the world, a trip from which she would never return. I’d like to listen as she talked about her fascination with airplanes and understand why she felt compelled to live on the edge and tackle seemingly impossible goals.

Thomas Edison: Born before the Civil war in 1847, Edison was the fourth most prolific inventor in history holding 1,093 patents. Among other things he invented were the electric light bulb reportedly saying after each failure that he was that much closer to getting it right. The phonograph, the motion picture camera, the carbon microphone that made telephones indispensable, the alkaline storage battery and a co-inventor of the typewriter were among his more noted inventions. Given the world today, what would Edison see in our future? What new inventions could he provide that would change the world as radically as did his light bulb? What would he have done differently given the objectivity of time?

There is a new smartphone on the market now where all you have to do is gently bump your phone with someone else’s to transfer data, which is a pretty cool invention in itself. What would the world be like if all we had to do was gently bump heads with someone else with whom we wanted to share knowledge? Would it make the world a better place or not?

Comment below on who you’d like to have dinner with, living or passed on, and why?

“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”~Leonardo Da Vinci